Mother always said, “Be good and nice things will happen”. I had always believed her, or so I thought. Every time something good happened, it was the consequence of a nice action, right? I was reflecting on that as I looked through the window that morning. The sun was shining up in the sky, its glow taking place on the wood the boats were made of, as they floated peacefully in the shimmering sea. I didn’t know what time it was at the moment, but I thought it must’ve been around eight o’clock in the morning. I was alone at home, boredom growing every second as I waited for my parents to get back from their weekly grocery
shopping trip.

Minutes went by and I had been waiting for a long time, still looking through the window. At this point I wasn’t seeing the ocean or the boats, not even the clouds that were slowly fading, but my own image in the window’s glass. I spotted myself with the exact same expression mom had in her face when she was bored. I really looked alike to her. As I realized this my dog started barking and the familiar sound of clinking keys made him wiggle his tail frenetically. I couldn’t help but smile as I saw my parents waddling in because of the heavy bags packed with groceries they were carrying. After helping them with the bags and organizing everything in the kitchen, my mom gave me a candy from the ones she had just
bought, saying it was my reward for helping with the groceries. “Be good and nice things will happen”, I thought.

A few hours passed, and after lunch we decided to go for a walk. We went down to the beach, and just as we reached the sand a group of seagulls was flying perfectly aligned right above us. My parents kept walking, trying to look for somewhere to leave our stuff, but I stayed behind looking at the sky. I noticed there was an empty spot in the seagulls’ alignment. It was strange, like a very large space between two of them. Not long after that I heard something between some bushes, like plastic being scrunched. After I made sure I could still see my parents so as not to get lost, I started looking in between the branches of the bush, trying to discover what the sound was. I was certainly surprised when I encountered a seagull trapped in a plastic net. It probably was the reason there was this large, empty spot in between the
other seagulls. I was a bit afraid, but I managed to free the seagull and return with my parents before they noticed my absence. This time, I had done something good, but nothing nice happened. I tried to remind myself to think about it later, but swimming in the sea was so fun I just forgot. The rest of the afternoon went by smoothly, and so I found myself once again in my house, the evening softly laying in the ocean outside.

I went to bed around ten o’clock, but woke up quite early, with my dad holding a newspaper
in front of me and a beaming smile on his face.
“You are on the newspaper!” – He said.
It was impossible for me to brush off the surprised expression I had. My dad had now burst into some sort of laughter, tears of joy almost pouring down his cheeks. My mom was also in my bedroom now, with the same radiant face.
“What’s happening?” – I mumbled, sitting on my bed. I was still way too asleep to understand
what was going on.
Turns out the beach I had rescued the seagull from had cameras, which recorded me looking through the bush and the seagull flying, free from the plastic net. The story was now on the newspaper and my parents had seen it. I said nothing and walked to the bathroom to wash
my face, in an attempt to wake up, my parents following me. I looked at myself in the mirror,
the reflection of my parents behind me, and I thought: “Be good and nice things will happen.
Even if it takes time for them to come.”

I got out of the bathroom and looked through the same window as the day before. Mom said I was a superhero. And she was right. Maybe I didn’t have a cape, or a secret name, or superpowers, but I had done the right thing to do, and that was the nicest thing it could ever happen to someone.